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October 06, 2004

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Several years ago, as my friend, Rob Lowe was showing me some of his pictures I became interested in one of him dressed up for Halloween one year.

I got a copy of the image and brushed him out of the background. Then I blended and transitioned the two together in a morph program, so that it appeared as though he was disappearing, and/or reappearing. If you hold your mouse over the image you can see the effect. 

How I did it:
Well, as I have done numerous times in the past, I simply brushed the character out of the image. How I do this is to use a "clone" tool, or "rubber stamp" as it is called in Photoshop. I clone bits and pieces of the surrounding image behind and copy them directly over the top of the object to be removed. This can sometimes be very tedious and difficult depending on the availability of the background. It is also sometimes difficult to produce the background without there being too many duplicates. In using the background, and duplicating it, it often leaves obvious mirrored objects. There has to be some creativity to try to make things look more random. If you notice, many of the fence boards behind RA are almost exactly alike. That was me not taking more time to work on it. But since I wasn't getting paid for it, and it was all for fun, it didn't matter all that much. But what you must do when brushing out objects from a picture is you have to be imaginative and creative and totally create an area that is actually not even there.

Try it yourself sometime. It works great for getting rid of ex-wives or ex-husbands, or even ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends from, otherwise great pictures. Or for just getting rid of unattractive junk or clutter from a picture.

I have used it on numerous occasions to brush out blemishes and tears from old images. Feel free to browse through my "Graphicals" section of my image archives on my web site and I'm sure you will find a considerable amount there.